> Of course, upon all this, they're also strategic. The Chinese government set out to build EVs in 1994 - GM was already well advanced on their electric vehicl

> Of course, upon all this, they're also strategic. The Chinese government set out to build EVs in 1994 - GM was already well advanced on their electric vehicle (the EV1, which launched in 1996). However, GM discontinued the EV1[1] in 1999, but the Chinese government stayed the course. No publicly listed American company can stay on-task on a project that will only bear fruit in 30 years; long-term projects are the first to be lose funding when there are macro-economic headwinds; see multiple Google X projects, and Google is/was one of the better companies at attempting long-term projects. Hell, even government agencies like NASA struggle with projects that span more than one presidential administration. 1. Incidentally, the Tesla co-founders were inspired to start Tesla by the EV1 - which is why referencing traditional automotive OEMs as "dinosaurs" is laughable